New Door Decoration

I decided to make something new for our door this fall. I wanted something different, and not round. So I headed off to the craft store for some inspiration. Here is what I came home with:

I found a plain wooden frame that I thought would be perfect with some burlap wrapped around it, so I bought a yard of that. You can't just have burlap, so I bought some fabric to make rosettes. I thought my rosettes might need a button center, so I got some buttons (turns out that they didn't). I also thought that I would make my rosettes replaceable, and bought some allegator clips. After I made them, I discovered that the clips were too big, so I didn't end up needing them either. Total cost was $7.

I started by cutting my burlap into 1 inch strips (I didn't actually measure, just eyeballed.). (Look here for a great step-by-step in cutting burlap in a straight line.) Then I started at one corner and worked my way around, attaching the burlap with my hand dandy hot glue gun. The corner were the hardest to get to lay flat, but I eventually made it work with minimal burns to my fingers.

1/2 way there

All done!

Then I started my rosettes. A Girl and a Glue Gun  has a great video to help you visualize this. Again, I managed to escape with minimal hot glue burns.



When it was all done, it looked like this

I really like the way it turned out, but don't know if I love it on my door. It still needs a ribbon or some burlap to hang it. I wish I had used a thiner and bigger frame, but hindsight is 20/20, right? It will probably end up on my door, or with a picture added and hung on the wall in my bedroom. For now (since my Halloween wreath is up), it is sitting on a shelve while I determine it's fate.

Outtings

I am off for the summer, and I love spending time with David. However, if we don't get out of the house at least 4 of 5 days, I tend to get grouchy. I am not a stay-at-home mom, although sometimes I wish I was.

Anyway, since we (I) need to get out of the house, we have become creative on what we do so that we are not always spending money, or at least not very much. We go to the library, $1 movies, the zoo (we have a membership), the other zoo (aka PetCo), the playground (when it's not 90 degrees), and our latest outing, our local thrift store (read Goodwill, but doesn't thrift store sound better?). I wasn't looking for specific, just looking. I'm tired of my decor, so I'm slowly replacing things. Nate says its okay, but to remember our ultimate goal of getting out of debt. Free is great (like this) but cheap is the next best thing. I've been keeping my eyes open for things I can rework to fit into our space.

Back to my outing. It was 90+ degrees on the day we went. It was an outting with AC all in one. While walking through the isles (killing time before nap time), I picked up books for David (you can't beat 0.69 each for Dr. Seuss books), and a pair of shoes. On our way out, we headed down the last isle, when my heart skipped a beat. I found the perfect piece of art for my wall. I didn't care the price, I was buying it. Much to me delight, it was only $13! Even Nate agreed that it was worth $13.

Here is what we had before. Nice, and it was only $10 at Big Lots 4 years ago. It just doesn't scream that a boy (two actually) live here now.

And my new purchase. L.O.V.E.

 

I'll reuse the old canvas. We'll be re-doing the guest bedroom into David's big boy room soon, so I may do something for his room. Best part of redoing it is that if I do like it, I can paint over it and start again.